The Economy of Communion As Stakeholder Capitalism: Exploring Religion’s Evolving Influence on Business—Session 2

In 2019, the business roundtable redefined the purpose of a corporation to promote “an economy that serves all Americans.” In 2020, the New York Times endorsed this redefinition of corporate purpose 50 years after Milton Friedman’s editorial and amid protests for recognizing and including all. This year, Fordham Law’s Institute on Religion, Law, and Lawyer’s Work, along with Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, invite you to explore how business can accomplish these humanistic goals.

The economy of communion (EoC) is an economic model created within the Catholic tradition positing that business exists for the benefit of all people who make up a workplace, workforce, and marketplace. Religion has long influenced the norms and practices in which business is conducted, iconically with the Weberian “work ethic” informing capitalism. This conference will explore the continuing evolution of its relationship with business from a religiously diverse lens over four one-hour sessions each Tuesday in October. There will also be two Thursday sessions for reflection and networking.

Session II: Practicing Inclusion in the Contemporary Workspace

A space for small business and middle-management practitioners of diversity and inclusion to share their experiences.

Speakers

• John Mundell is the president of Mundell & Associates, founded in 1995 to provide professional earth and environmental consulting services to industry, municipalities, governmental agencies, engineering firms, and the legal community. As part of his involvement in the EoC, Mundell currently serves on the International EoC Commission and the North American EoC Advisory Board, which help coordinate the activities and development of the EoC at both global and national levels.
• Peter Trent has five-plus years in the IT field of network communications. He started from New York City Transit as an intern and is now a full-time employee for Netpro communications, a full-service IT consulting company based in New York City.
• Yusra Alshanqityi studied law at King Abdul Aziz University in Saudi Arabia and completed her master of laws degree program with a dual concentration in international law and justice and international dispute resolution. Years later, after interning at the African Services Committee, a nonprofit based in Harlem, New York, Alshanqityi worked on immigration and asylum cases and decided to seek an S.J.D. at Fordham Law. Alshanqityi’s doctoral research produced scholarship and proposals on labor law and labor rights for laborers to reform the sponsorship system in her native Saudi Arabia.